The Altcoin section is pretty savage. Going there is like driving through that side of town where you lock your doors and hope you don't run out of gas.
It's gotten pretty bad - no doubt about it.
It's been bad for a long time. I stopped even looking at the alt section when I stopped mining ltc with cpu and btc with video cards at the same time. Between the coin attacks, scammers, death threats and other bullshit in the alt section I'm surprised theymos hasn't eliminated this section altogether. I know why he keeps it though. The altcoins and this section bring more visitors to the forum than all of the other sections combined including the other language sections. More hits to the forum means more ad revenue.
There are signs we're seeing a secular (rather than just cyclical) decline in interest and trading volume across multiple exchanges - and not just in altcoins but bitcoins as well. New money isn't coming in and old money is moving out. Rallies that used to last days are now hour-long blips. No coin seems to stay on top gainers lists for more than a day or so. I don't know where this forum is headed, but the altcoin markets already seem to be fading.
One of the biggest signs of this is that even the twitter celebrities are complaining and, most importantly, behaving like the good times are over or near over. Check out IconicExpert - he's planning on doing an ICO, a remarkable indication (no matter what he says) that he no longer feels there's much money to be made from trading (and dumping on other people) as there used to be. Cobain just spouts random jokes - doesnt bother recommending anything any more.
If you look at the various altcoin threads, the ferocity of coin-on-coin attacks shows the pie is shrinking for everyone, making people fight more fiercely over what's perceived to be a shrinking pie.
Bitcoin offered a golden opportunity for innovation and creativity and empire building - but so many have squandered that opportunity.
I am hopeful that some exceptions will arise from the dreck and bring back better times, and not just for insiders. Until then, I do an occasional peak for needle in a haystack, but I dont take most of these [ANN]'s very seriously as much other than BTC-vacuums. Most people here do not seem to be interested in building a principled crypto ecosystem here.
I agree completely. In early 2011 you couldn't respond to a thread in Bitcoin discussion, regardless of the topic, without an immediate response from someone else. Now I hardly see anyone that I talked to back then on the forum. New people seem far more scarce than they used to be and it can take as much as a day for an answer to appear in a thread.
When you click on "show unread posts since last visit:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread what you see now is a bunch of Altcoin threads, a few marketplace threads and Bitcoin wall observer thread (wannabe speculators trolling). Less and less people are coming here for Bitcoin.
Everyone is excited that VC money is bringing new businesses to Bitcoin. Anyone can accept Bitcoin but that doesn't mean customers are ever going to show up at your business with a pocket full of Bitcoin ready to spend. There are still lots of people mining Bitcoin and they are benefitting from all the new options for spending them. Already we are seeing large ASIC farms that are taking over Bitcoin mining. What's going to happen when ASIC manufacturers completely take over Bitcoin mining? Will there be more than a handful of individuals actually using Bitcoin at that time? A bunch of free state project hippies buying granola at Porcfest isn't enough to make a thriving economy.
For years the average Joe has been bombarded by bad news about Bitcoin the scammer/crime money. He is unwilling to listen to the stories and learn that Bitcoin isn't responsible for the crime. I have friends that treat me like a Seventh Day Adventist knocking on the door when I bring up Bitcoin now. They just don't want to hear it anymore. The only way Mr. Normal Guy is going to use Bitcoin is if he doesn't know he's using it. If it becomes a background service like TCP/IP then it might grow. Currently Bitcoin isn't robust enough to be picked up for global use as a background service. It will need lots of improvements first. BTW: What's the current exchange rate of TCP/IP to the dollar. If Norm doesn't know he's using it, it won't have an exchange rate.